Poor Simon. He had been adopted, but returned to Anderson Animal Shelter in South Elgin, IL, and had been waiting for years for someone to give him a second chance.

But, at 8 years old and a little portly, he had only slim opportunities indeed. People just walked by and headed for the kittens.

Just when hope was almost lost, into his life came Beth Reiter of Chicago, who saw him on Petfinder. She says her cat, Annie, needed a feline companion, and Beth wasn’t daunted by Simon’s age or appearance. She adopted him, and Simon suddenly found himself in an entirely new situation.

“After a bath, he spent the first month hiding under the bed,” she says, “but slowly, over the next few months, he expanded his comfort zone to include the entire house.”

Simon spent so much of his life alone in a cage that Beth doesn’t expect him ever to be a cuddly cat, but he now trusts her enough to sleep on her ankles. “That is a reward of its own,” she says. “He is very curious and loves to sniff things. His favorite part of his new life is having a cat fountain. He even staged a sit-in protest when his fountain broke until we replaced it.”

Simon represents thousands of older pets who are too often overlooked when they have so much to give. Petfinder is highlighting them this month for Adopt-A-Senior-Pet Month.